nbc's bay area's jean elle joins us from redwood city where many of the survivors were invited to the screening. >> reporter: survivors of that blast say the film, "trial by fire," captured many of the horrors of that night. >> and the other house was on fire. >> reporter: the real-life nightmare of the deadly pg&e pipeline explosion in san bruno is now a documentary. an intimate group watched "trial by fire," in redwood city tonight, watching as the film recounted the horror they experienced on september 9th, 2010. >> couldn't do anything without water. >> reporter: bob is in the film. he barely escaped the inferno. >> it will always be in my mind what happened. think about it occasionally. you can't run and hide from it. >> reporter: still healing, he believes watching the film helped survivors release some of the emotion bottled up inside. >> probably brought a lot of people back. opened up some memories and stuff that people were trying to suppress. and i just kind of, if i can't face it head-on. >> reporter: they lost their home and two cats in the fire. wife, nancy, wasn't home